This past year for feedback people had questions about the panel selection and scheduling process. I will do my best to answer any questions you have about the processes. The Panel FAQ on the Anime Boston website is there to answer common panel questions. Please read that first before e-mailing me.

Panel selections start right after applications close. Panels are organized in a Google document with duplicate submissions removed. The document is then sent out to a committee of Anime Boston staff to review. The committee routinely consists of members in programming, tech, and security. They have one week to read and rate all the panels. Panels are rated on a scale of 1 to 5. 1 being the panel does not follow Anime Boston mission or has a poor description of their panel. A 5 being this panel follows Anime Boston’s mission and has a detailed description of what topics will be covered. After the week, we hold the panel selection meeting. We average out the ratings and go though all the panel submissions, one by one.

Panels that are rated with a 4 or a 5 are generally accepted right away. Panels rated a 3 or below get put on the waitlist. Panelists will now receive email of their panel application; Accepted, Waitlisted, or Denied. This happens usually a week or two after panel appellations close. Guest Relations is consulted to determine how much time their need and what room they require, these times are set aside for them. During the process departments are consulted for what times they need on the schedule, including Guests, Industry, Workshops, Gameshows, Cosplay Games, etc. Anime Boston programming are placed first (this includes Guests, Industry, Workshops, Gameshows, Cosplay games etc) and then fan panels are added to the schedule.

Once we have all the major events we can start filling in the gaps with additional panels. Fan panels are added to the schedule by rating. Panelists that were waitlisted will start to receive emails that they were accepted. Now it’s just moving things around that need to be switched like guest panels, industry panels, etc that needs a time switch.

The schedule is now pretty much complete; the dropouts are replaced and the schedule is released to staff for a final review for any mistakes. Once Guest Relations and Programming are satisfied we will release the schedule to the public. Then it gets released, granted it has the approval. After more consulting is done with everyone to make adjustments; people wanting to switch time slots, panel drops, filling in those holes, etc. This step is repeated until Wednesday of the convention. Schedule changes can happen after the schedule is released, so it’s important that you double check even after the printed schedule is out.

So, tada! This is the basic process the schedule is made. I simplified it as much as possible, but if you have some questions I can do my best to answer them for you. On the bottom I have provided some links that can help with your panels. As I find more I will update the list.

if i can make a suggestion, it would be nice if the emails saying something has been rejected/wait-listed/approved had the actual score in them since you guys are rating them and have these number internally anyways.

for those of us who got wait listed, it would help us figure out if anything needs to be done differently or not. currently there is no real feedback as to what could have been done differently to give a submission a better chance of being accepted. i only know my submission got wait-listed, but i don't know if it was on the cusp of being accepted, or if there were a lot of things i should have done differently.

ideally the responses would get personalized "this is what you were missing", but i realize that gives you guys a lot more work due to the number of panels submitted. it's just frustrating because this is my second year getting wait-listed on a panel and i believe the panels i submitted

* follow ab's mission
* had a detailed description of the topics covered
* had a good description
* have a pretty small list of unavailable timeslots

so other than being a would-be first time panelist, i'm not sure what i should be doing differently.

"Asking cosplayers to walk through a metal detector is like asking Axl Rose to take a drug test." -Bluebeard45

The ratings are similar to that of the AMV screening. While people have asked for their panel score and AMV pre-screening score, they are for Anime Boston's internal use only. However, if you wanted feedback on the panel itself, people have made notes while rating them so I can see if there is any feedback from that.

We had a lot of panel submissions this year! I was hoping to break 400 this year, we were slightly under. This is a lot and I only have so much room to slot people this year. If you are still on the wait list and want to present, AB does do outreach events that are looking for panel applications as well. :)

This I can do! I have alittle too much on my plate this week but this weekend I should be able to send any feed back on wait listed panels. I will be doing this via PMs, so if anyone else would like some feed back post here and I will get to it. :)

Something that I always wondered about as a Panelist Post-Con is why Panelists never got written feedback post-con on how they did. Getting whatever you paid to register for AB is great but I think getting written feedback in addition to that would help both first-time and returning panelists fine-tune for next time.

I wouldn't want that burden to be put on the tech staff member assigned to the room so maybe getting a volunteer or two might make more sense. I know the tech staff member doubles as the timekeeper so this would be one less thing for them to have to do. Things recorded in the feedback form would be the panelist's demonstrated knowledge of the subject, preparedness, audience engagement and time management (starting and finishing on time). Notes would also be taken if the panelist goes into subject matter they shouldn't such as 18+ Material in an All Ages Panel or promoting piracy ("I watch my anime for free on this site!" or "You can watch that anime for free with this App!").

Finally, the Director of Panels and Programming would review all the feedback forms, add some notes of their own and then mail them out. It'll add a level of organization and continuity as well both ways and costs nothing to do.